


and my loves on fire in the pale moon light

by Ladyboo



Series: This might be crazy, but I think I love you [1]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Genderbending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 14:25:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14107311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladyboo/pseuds/Ladyboo
Summary: 3:10 am, and the whole world was still, felt like it started and ended with the star bright quiet as their part San Francisco slept. He'd stayed too late in the office, no rest for the wicked when there was paperwork to be had, but all Chris wanted was to fall asleep against his wife.





	and my loves on fire in the pale moon light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [saintsurvivor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/saintsurvivor/gifts).



> More fluff! Probably spelling errors, probably typos, regardless, enjoy!

The townhouse was dark by the time he made it home, street lights all aglow and the air of their neighborhood relatively still. No man's land, the witching hour was upon him, tangible with every breath of luminous night air that he took. The quiet was soothing after the day that he’d had, as if the rest of the world had taken note and the universe had given him pardon and given him a private quiet, as if he could take the very stars within his lungs if he breathed hard enough. 

He stood as the only waking soul as far as his mind cared, and yet, the world slipped by all the same, and soon, soon the sun would rise. The sun would rise, and the next day would hit, and he would have to be at the office by eight, he would have to deal with paperwork that he hadn’t finished and students that didn’t care how tired he was, ground bound as he was for the next two semesters while his ship underwent retrofitting. Skyward glances and stolen stares at the stars, that was as close as he would get for now, the comforting cradle of the atmosphere so far out of reach that he couldn’t even feel the way it stole his gravity.

Chris let himself into the quiet of their home with a click of the lock, and the door gave easy under his hand. She’d fixed that then, had gotten bored, had gotten handy, it no longer stuck in the jam from where the summer heat had made the wood swell last year. He wondered dimly what else she had fixed, or when she had even found the time between her classes and her homework but he knew better than to bother and ask. Depending on how much she had or hadn’t slept, the question would go right over her head anyway, lost somewhere in the haze of too much caffeine and too many equations. 

She hadn’t put her shoes away again, the hallway closet open just enough that her sneakers had tumbled out, a single heeled ankle boot showing its toe with its twin lost somewhere in the dark. She had left the lights on for him at least, dim enough to set a sepia glow through the entryway. It caught on the pictures that she had insisted they hang, on the gleaming bronze and copper frames that she had said made them look classy, and she’d pouted something pretty while he’d laughed and laughed at her quiet grumbling. He’d kissed her hair then, had reeled her in with a hand around her thin shoulders and held her close while she squirmed and smacked a hand against his chest and called him an ass. 

Quick to toe his own shoes off, one hand braced to the wall where he started to sway, and Chris went for the stairs then. Darkness all the way up, yawning at the very top of them and seeping down until it eased with the soft glow from the front light that he still hadn’t turned off. His bed was up there, his wife was up there, curled up on their bed and soft with sleep, probably in one of his shirts because she insisted they were warmer. His back hurt from where he had slouched over his desk for so long, his feet hurt because of all the walking he had done that say, he just wanted to pull her against him and see if he slept through his alarm. 

The entry light flicked off once he’d thumbed at the switch enough, once he’d missed the first three times and had had to swipe it with his entire hand instead, and there was nothing but the soft fall of darkness around him. He would take the stairs by memory then, one hand on the banister and the other on the wall, mindful of the second from the top where it always creaked. Quiet, ten minutes tops to shed his clothes onto the floor and wash his face before he actually fell into bed with her, except-

There was a light on, glowing quiet and low from around the corner, through the living room to instead where their kitchen and dining room were. At least one light on by the soft stream of it, and Chris paused then, hesitated on the edge of the stairs before he sighed, before he moved from what he wanted to where he was probably needed. Because she didn’t leave lights on, not like that anyway, it had taken days of consideration on her part before she had agreed to even leave on the entryway overhead for him. 

“J-”

Her name caught in his throat, because she was there, but not like he’d expected. He’d anticipated diagrams spread out around her, too many PADD’s for her to really keep track of and at least one pen in her hair. Three cups of coffee maybe in various stages of tepid and empty, a half eaten apple and circles under her eyes as she slogged her way through Engineering work that he would never understand even if he loved to listen to her talk. 

She had let her hair down for once. 

Wild summer sun curls that coiled past her shoulders, down her back or slipped past her ribs to disappear off the edge of the table, looking soft to the touch and molten in the dim lighting. He didn’t remember the last time she’d left her hair down, hadn’t twisted it up in some tail or knot or braid to keep it out of her face, away from her work, and Chris wanted to run his fingers through her curls. There was food on the table, the good china, the stuff she’d inherited from her grandparents that they never used because she was scared to break it, coconut shrimp curry that looked like it had long since gone cold and stiff. The good glasses even, cut crystal that looked like they held water rather than anything else, and she’d managed to fall asleep at the part of the table where she  _ hadn’t  _ put her careful table setting and the meal that had taken her at least an hour. 

He didn’t recognize that dress, the way the sleeves clung just off her shoulders and the open plunge of the back. A deep crimson fabric, delicate strands of gold peaked out from between the tumble of her curls down the gap of the back, a back and forth sweep of them that held the dress together where it dipped low to the small of her spine. Long sleeves, that same brilliant red on her slender arms and the dainty of her wrists where they came down, where they covered the backs of her hands in a slow point only to band like a ring around her middle fingers. 

He hadn’t missed their anniversary. 

They had four months still till that, he had something  _ planned _ , had perfectly timed for them to have two weeks together in a cottage in the Mojave where he could watch her skin turn pink under the sun. 

He had missed something though, she had planned something, Jim had gone through the effort to cook for him when the two of them rarely had the time during the week. She’d bought a new dress, new shoes even because those were new, black pumps with a tell tale red sole that he didn’t recognize when he rounded the table to stand beside her, she’d let her hair down. 

The one time he didn’t call to tell her he’d be late, and Jim had gone out of her way to try and make something special. 

Sighing, pressing a hand to his face and dragging it slow until his fingers pulled at his hair, Chris couldn’t help the way his smile turned fond for as tired as he was. Because it was 3:14 in the morning by the clock on the wall, because it had gone so late it had turned early and the sun would be rising over the ridge to the east soon. Because Jim had tried, had dolled herself up and had made him dinner when she rarely even had time to remember to feed herself on a Thursday night, and she’d waited for him so long that she’d fallen asleep at the table. 

“Jimmy, baby.”

A careful hand on her head, sweeping low to her back, and Chris crouched down beside her in hopes of seeing her face when she woke. Sure enough, her eyes blinked open just as he got low enough, peeked at him through the tumble of her hair and damn it, she’d even put on makeup for him, sharp slashes of black above her galaxy blue eyes like he liked and her lashes dark like night. She blinked at him, sleep hazy and slow for just a moment, and he watched as her megawatt brain caught up, as the light kicked on in her eyes. 

“Chris!”

She shot up, and it was only habit that kept him from getting hit when her hands came up, two years of married life practice enough to know how to evade her flailing limbs. Her mouth matched her dress, a deep, succulent red, and she smiled at him with that slight gap between her front teeth even as she reached for him. He cupped her face in his hands, brushed a thumb across her cheek and and fought the urge to kiss her mouth if only to save her lipstick. 

“You fell asleep at the table sweetheart, why didn’t you just go to bed?”

A pout then, a faint frown, and his wife scowled at him like he’d asked her something stupid, like he was a student for the class she TA’d that hadn’t done his homework. He shrugged in response, didn’t know how long she’d been asleep or how long since the food had gone cold, but Jim looked far more wide eyed and awake than he felt. 

“Because I made dinner, Christopher.”

“I can see that, James.” She huffed at him, tried to turn her face to give him her cheek instead and he just laughed, just drew her close so he could press a kiss to her forehead between the furrow of her brow. Petulant and raring to go, he would bet his ship that there would be no getting her to bed now, not with that look in her eyes and that pull to her mouth. “Why did you make dinner, baby?”

She went quiet then, quiet like his starfire of a wife never really was, and Chris brushed some of her wild curls off of her shoulder. Jim watched him with those infinite eyes of hers though, bottled starlight and eternity blinking back at him, bright as any desert sky and beautiful. Her mouth pursed, full lips going a bit flat and her and her cheeks puffing faintly like they did when she chewed on her words. She didn’t answer him though, her hands knotting together in her lap, and she pulled at the scalloped hem of her dress skirt like she needed something to do. 

“Jim?”

Her eyes shut then, squeezed tight and he could hear the breath that she took. At another time he would need to appreciate the things that dress did to her body, the way it cupped her breasts and nipped at her waist, the things that color did to her skin. His wife was a distraction even with her hair unwashed and engine grease on her cheeks, but he would always appreciate her in a pretty dress. Now though, now there was something off, something possibly wrong, and he felt anxiety cold and thick in his blood. 

“Jimmy, baby?”

That interstellar blue was wet, swimming with tears that looked just ready to fall, but she smiled at him, breathtaking and wide and red. 

“I’m pregnant.”

And the world stood still in that instant, nothing mattered but the pounding of his heart and the way that she smiled at him, how beautiful she looked.

“Chris!” 

Her laughter was a cackle, a crack of sound in the dim lit quiet of their dining room, because he pulled her out of her chair with his hands at her hips until her feet left the ground. Her fingers caught his shoulders, her thighs slotted themselves a familiar home at his hips, and Jim held close as he spun them around. Her skirt was full, a splash of deep crimson that danced around them and he heard the sound of one of her shoes hitting the floor, distant and quiet beneath her laughter. 

He kissed her exposed shoulder, her collarbone, and caught the brilliant red of her mouth with his when she pulled his head up, when she curled her nails against his jaw and held him so that she could slide their mouths together. Her back to the wall, body high and held aloft in his arms, Chris could feel the pounding of her heart against his skin. 

“We’re having a baby?”

Her lipstick hadn’t moved, not a single smear out of place and Jim smiled at him with the small distance between their faces. Her sunshine cloud of curls shadowed them, just enough that her eyes were starlight bright in the din. And her smile was just as soft as her face was sweet, and that was his heart in his throat as he listened to the raspy croon of her voice as she swept her thumb across his lower hip, as she held his face in the palms of her hands. 

“We’re having a baby.”


End file.
